of all the ways smell is usually the worst valued, to the point that the majority of the population affirms that if they had to give up a sense, they could live without smell. However, a face could not do without the nose since it is an organ that marks the physiognomy of each one.
There are many different patterns and nose shapes, and one always seeks to increase beauty when undergoing surgery on this part of the body, explains Dr. José Mª Guilemany, a specialist in Otolaryngology and Cervical-Facial Surgery, who believes that functionality and aesthetics are two concepts that must go hand in hand with when performing this surgery.
With your help we have compiled some curiosities of this appendix:
1. It is the only sense that gets tired.
When the nose perceives bad odors, our body detects it and we realize it, but after a few minutes, our brain may adapt. A peculiarity that does not happen with the rest of the senses of the human body.
2. Its development can continue until adolescence.
It does not finish developing until the cranial development ends, except in exceptional cases it is not recommended to operate in women until 15-16 years of age, and in men up to 17 years of age. With the passage of time it lengthens and the cartilage falls due to the effect of gravity and the rupture of the ligaments that support it.
3. The olfactory memory is the most powerful of the human being.
The sense of smell is directly connected to the limbic system. This is the part of the brain that is associated with the attribution of emotional responses and memory. Who has not associated a smell with stages of their childhood or adolescence? The smell is the sense that is most connected to our emotional memories.
4. The first interventions date back to 3,000 BC
According to some historical documents, Egyptian doctors performed interventions on this part of the body more than 3,000 years ago. These operations were aimed at rebuilding the nose, due to war conflicts.
5. An ancient Chinese discipline relates its form to a good marriage.
There is a belief based on Asian ‘Face Reading’ that people with a straight, unscarred and large nose tend to have good luck in marriage.
6. Condition the air.
One of its most outstanding functions is to humidify, heat and clean the air that enters our lungs. Breathing through the nose correctly is vital to avoid possible pathologies.
7. You may suffer from anosmia.
The nose can stop perceiving odors, and smell can be completely abolished. These cases are known as anosmia and consist of the loss of the function of the sense of smell. In addition, it is estimated that more than 15% of the population has some degree of loss of smell, a pathology that affects the day to day of these people.
8. It is the most pronounced part of the face.
When the nose is not harmonious, it is usually the area of the face that we pay most attention to when meeting someone, and on the contrary, when it stands out for its beauty, we pay less attention to it, looking more at the eyes and lips. For these reasons, it marks the characteristic features and is one of the parts of the body that is operated on the most.
9. When you lie, your nose doesn’t grow but it changes temperature.
Scientists from the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Granada (UGR) revealed in a study that when a person lies, the temperature of the tip of their nose changes, known as ‘pinocchio effect’. The UGR explained that when a person lies, the temperature at the tip of their nose increases or decreases, while their body temperature also increases in the area of the orbital muscle, in the inner corner of the eye.
10. Smell is capable of distinguishing more than a trillion odors.
An experiment at the Rockefeller University Neurogenetics Laboratory in New York, United States, reveals that the human sense of smell can detect more than a trillion mixtures of odors. The authors of the work, led by Dr. Andreas Keller, tested the volunteers’ ability to distinguish between complex mixtures of odors and reached their conclusions based on the sensitivity of the nose and brain of these people.
11. Rhinoplasty is the fifth most performed plastic surgery.
This intervention is the fifth most performed plastic surgery in Spain, since one in every thousand citizens undergoes this operation every year, the most common patients being those between 18 and 45 years of age.
Patients who have to undergo a functional intervention, such as an endoscopic turbinate reduction, can also undergo an aesthetic operation, since the improvement of functionality is not incompatible at any time with the aesthetic improvement.